Nobilta: Während Renovierungsarbeiten wird ein männliches Skellet gefunden. Schnell stellt sich heraus, dass der Tote Roberto Lorenzoni, der vor 2 Jahren entführte Sohn des Großindustriellen, Ludovico Lorenzoni, ist.
Brunetti übernimmt gemeinsam mit seinem Partner Vianello den Fall. Die Täter verlangten damals eine hohe Lösegeldsumme, die Lorenzoni senior zu gern bezahlt hätte, jedoch durch den Staat daran gehindert wurde. Nach intensiven Ermittlungen drängt Brunetti sich der Verdacht auf, dass die ganze Entführung nur ein Ablenkungsmanöver war..."Nobilta" ist zweifelsohne hinter "Die dunkle Stunde der Serenissima" der beste Brunetti-Roman, den Donna Leon zu bieten hat- eine einfach brilliante Story, gut aufgebaute Charaktere und ein Brunetti in Höchstform. Zwar ist der Roman teilweise an einigen Stellen vorhersehbar, aber vielleicht liegt das auch nur daran, dass ich den Film davor schon gesehen hatte. Auf jeden Fall ist Nobilta ein absolutes Muss für Brunetti-Fans und auch andere Krimiliebhaber! Unbedingt kaufen!

In A Noble Radiance, by Donna Leon, a partially decomposed body is found in a field, and is identified as that of Roberto Lorenzoni, the only son of one of Venice's oldest and most wealthy families. Two years previously, he had been kidnapped but the case remained unsolved. However, with the discovery of the body, Guido Brunetti is assigned to reopen the case to see if any new leads can be found. Meanwhile, Roberto's mother still grieves, and his father, Count Lorenzoni, has been training his nephew, Maurizio, to take over the family businesses.

Although A Noble Radiance is not the most complicated mystery in the Brunetti series so far, I found it quite well done. The pacing was not quick, but it was even, and I found the story and its resolution affecting. As per usual, Leon focused on a sub-theme in the book. Usually the secondary theme is political, but this time it was more emotionally based - the love of a husband for his wife. ( )

#7 Commissario Guido Brunetti Italian police mystery set in Venice. Another cold case mystery where an old unsolved case is brought to the forefront when skeletal remains are found in a shallow grave in a village north of Venice when the new owner of an estate begins renovating. A valuable gold ring with a family crest with the body leads authorities to believe that the body is that of twenty-one-year-old Roberto Ludovicio, wealthy heir who was kidnapped two years ago and never found. Dental records confirm this and a bullet hole in the back of the head confirms that he was murdered, but can Brunetti track down the perpetrators with so many of the clues gone dead? Of course--Brunetti finds that the clues are merely dormant, not dead at all, and they lead him on a merry chase, throwing red herrings all over the place. As usual, it's not always possible to obtain justice through the Italian penal and court system, but in Leon's Venice, usually the universe knows what its doing, and this was no exception. I love the author's intellectual mysteries, with much philosophy and excellent cooking as well as vibrant atmosphere included in the bargain. In fact I love it so much, I'm going to do something I've not done in many a moon--read a couple of series books back to back. ( )

A Noble RAdiance
Donna Leon

7th in the Commisario Brunetti series, set in Venice, Italy.

In a small village out in the countryside of the Veneto, a farmer ploughing a filed opens a shallow grave that contains the decomposed body of a young man, kidnapped two years before. Scion to one of the oldest noble families of Venice, the recovery of his body--and evidence of murder--reopens the case, with Brunetti at the head of the investigation. There are too many questions that did not get asked in the original investigation, and Brunetti decides to dig deeper into the history of the family.

This is one of Leon’s more straightforward police procedurals, although she doesn’t miss the opportunity to use yet another social concern as an integral part of the plot. Sgt. Vianello continues to play an increasingly important role in the series; Signorina Elettra is, of course, by now well entrenched with her bright spring-like clothing, her dazzling flowers, and her laudable capacity and enthusiasm for criminal activity, namely hacking into any banking or government computer system at will “with a little help from my friends” all over the world.

The ending is Italian--and tragic.

Intriguingly, this is the first installment where the title is a play on words involving the plot.

Not the strongest entry in the series, it is still an excellent read. Recommended. ( )

Lassitude, headache and general malaise

Through her redoubtable hero Commissario Brunetti, Donna Leon unwittingly makes an interesting observation about A Noble Radiance itself: "...what he'd already heard so often he was beginning to feel the same symptoms: lassitude, headache and general malaise".

She may not have intended it, but in this sentence she invites comparison with the plotting and exposition in this book, which is so ponderous and repetitive you'll be experiencing lassitude and general malaise - if you haven't vigorously tossed the book aside altogether - very quickly. Your patience, if you have not, will be scantily rewarded: before half way nothing much nothing happens other than the repeated establishment of the same plot outline. After half way little does, and what there is in the way of action is ill-paced, improbable and ridiculous.

And to solve the crime (or does he really care about the crime? Leon overtly ponders whether this is what really drives her hero, something a more skilled writer would have allowed her readers to do) we have our hero Brunetti, a modern and thoughtful detective who reads Cicero in idle moments, but whose commanding officer hates him for reasons of which we are not appraised (other than the dictats of the Police Procedural Idiom). Good grief.

I think Donna Leon aspires to literariness, but doesn't get within a banjo swing of a cow's behind of it in this reviewer's humble opinion.

There are writers who write movingly, intellectually and chillingly about Italy - Peter Robb, even Thomas Harris, in passages - but Leon manages to make it all sound humdrum, and in the end there's not much to differentiate this book from countless other gumshoe detective stories other than the attraction of exotic and literary italian intrigue. The fact that it fails at that task is more than faintly damning. ( )